“Best get used to the uniform,” Amanda (Captain) Baines adds, gesturing to the case. “Try it on before you sleep, and wear it in the morning.”
“Yes,” Edie says. “Of course.”
In her cabin—Cuparah, of necessity, is big; in fact, it is huge for a submarine, like a Gothic destroyer sunk and overturned, with an Art Deco cruise ship inside, so cabins are like rooms in very expensive boutique hotels—Edie Banister stares at the photograph, and the face in it stares back at her in the light of her cabin’s curlicued reading lamp. All around her, there’s a whisper of water and air: the submarine has two hulls, one within the other. The inner walls are a honeycomb—for strength, flexibility, and lightness, the Ruskinites on board have told her, and to permit cabling and pipes. As the ship moves, it sighs and chuckles to itself, so that Edie fancies herself surrounded by a giant, generous, asthmatic dog.
The white shirt has trim sleeves and a severe cut which vanishes her already minimal bust. Over the top goes a jacket with broad shoulders, making a very male, very triangular torso dropping to her hips. Rummaging in her bags she finds her rank pins, and twists them through the thick collar. She also has a false moustache not entirely unlike Shem Shem Tsien’s, a brace of neat sparrow’s wings. Careful, she fixes them very firmly to her upper lip (in absolutely no sense does she wish to have a conversation with the Opium Khan which begins: “Commander Banister, your moustache has fallen in the gazpacho”) and turns to look in the mirror.
The effect is rather more than she had anticipated. A pale, severe face stares back at her, a young man’s only just out of boyhood—perhaps trying a little too hard—but definitely not a woman’s. How curious. She puts her cap on and looks again. Actually, that young man in the glass is quite attractive—not in a rugged way, but in the manner of a refined creature, inexperienced yet supple, in need of Edie’s skilled, frank schooling. An entirely different set of fantasies winds across her inner vision. My oh my… her hands trace the outline of his—her—uniform. Ho hum. It’s rather a shame she can’t go to bed with herself. She turns sideways… Delicious.
And distracting. Edie sneers at her reflection, hoping to produce a dangerous expression. Hm. That’s not a look which will stop an advancing foe. She tries again, going for confident disdain. It doesn’t work, but produces a strange, fey look of murderous intent instead.
Cuparah shudders and barks; it’s something called the thermocline. Edie doesn’t know what that may be, but hitting it and bouncing off it is like running the rapids, and every time it happens she abruptly remembers how far beneath the waves she is, and how very far from home. If only she could get some warmth into her bones. A hundred feet down in an iron cigar filled with working men, why the Hell is it so cold? She wonders if she can ask Amanda Baines for a heater.
Actually, she knows why it’s cold. Excess heat is a major problem in submarines, and Cuparah is worse than the average because she is bigger and contains all manner of clever doohickeys, including the coding machine, which gets so hot that in England it would be operated by girls wearing only their most sensible underwear. Because this is a Ruskinite submarine, it has an incredibly clever solution involving water being pumped around the vessel between the inner and outer hulls. This water is also—even more cunningly—used to assist in manoeuvring, and because it is not compressible, actually adds to the strength of the hull. Cuparah’s cooling system is the Keeper’s best work. Amanda Baines calls it Poseidon’s Net, and smiles a little when she does because she is the only submarine captain who has one. It is brilliant.
It also makes all the cabins in Edie’s section really cold.
Conscious of the weight above her, Edie slips out of her uniform. She steps carefully, feeling a ridiculous nervousness about leaning on the walls in case she punctures the armoured skin and drowns the boat. Ridiculous. Impossible. But she can’t shake the aching horror of the idea, shed the imagined feeling of an eggshell cracking.
She draws her blanket around her and falls asleep, wishing very devoutly for a friend in need, or actually, just the warm embrace of a friend in bed.
James Edward (Edie) Banister, sword on hip, walks along the gang of Cuparah. His boots are very black and very shiny, and his steps are the clipped, certain steps of a son of Empire. The playing fields of Eton have birthed him, and if they have not also been successful in teaching him classical Greek or mathematics, nor made any attempt to instil a sense of compassion, they have at least prepared him for his likely tasks with a sense of monstrous entitlement. Wherever he goes, in whatever ridiculous foreign court he walks, he walks in the warm shadow of Henry V and Queen Victoria, in the palm of the hand of Shakespeare, and let the heathen take heed.
“The gig is waiting, Commander Banister,” Amanda Baines says, without a shadow of humour. “I believe you already know these men?” And yes, he does—four of Mrs. Sekuni’s really very very not very good students, now grudgingly approved, in full rig and quite respectful.
“Yes, Captain,” Edie replies quietly.
“Carry on, then, James. Good luck.”
The long, maroon Rolls-Royce has grey leather seats and is driven by a respectful man called Tah. Tah assures his passenger that the journey will pass without incident. From behind James Banister’s whiskers, Edie wonders what sort of incident he is thinking of. She peers back along the road, comforted by her escort in their own car. A small squad of hard cases from the fighting parts of England, and very welcome, too.
The road is very straight and very flat, and lined with cherry trees. It is a perfect road through a barren place. Once, along the way, Commander Banister sees a grandmother plucking a stone from the track. Looking back as the car whooshes past, Edie sees the woman stoop again, and again, and realises that this is her task.
“The Khaygul-Khan is very progressive,” Tah says proudly. “He believes in full employment.”
“So I see.”
“And in civic works. This avenue is the work of the Khaygul-Khan’s modernising project. The cherry trees are brought from Japan. They are the most beautiful cherry trees in the world. Matched pairs.”
“The Khaygul-Khan believes his country should have the best,” James Banister agrees.
“Also, in engineering for the future. Our nation will not survive in the new world without infrastructure. We use modern construction techniques. No elephants.”
“What, none?”
“None at all. It is not modern.”
“That seems a shame.”
“The Khaygul-Khan does not greatly admire elephants. He says they are lazy by nature and prone to outbursts of temper. He was forced to have several of them impaled, because they would not serve in his army of peace. Elephants are of the past. In the future, there will be none in Addeh Sikkim.” Tah chokes a little on this last. James Banister makes haste to move the conversation along.
“I’m sure that’s very wise,” he says.
“Naturally, all our people wish to be part of the Khaygul-Khan’s great project,” Tah asserts stoutly.
“Naturally.”
“It is only the brigands from over the border who are against this. They foment rebellion and unrest. And the pirates from the Addeh.”
“I’m sure pirates are very wicked.”